If Only I Had Told Her(86)

I drink my coffee and listen and wonder why I am here.

But then I remember; I can hear my boyfriend’s voice in my head too.



This time, I’m not surprised when Brittaney is waiting for me when I come out of the bathroom stall.

“You’re having a girl,” she announces without preamble. “I thought you should know.” She’s leaning against the counter so she’s practically sitting on it, her toes barely grazing the ground.

“Cool,” I say as I head to the sink.

“I know you don’t believe me,” she says, “but I’m always right. When’s the ultrasound where you find out?”

“Next week.” I begin to wash my hands. This seems to be our routine.

“Are you excited?”

I look up. Our eyes meet in the mirror.

“No,” I admit to her.

“Why not? You have someone to go with you? Where’s the daddy?”

“He’s dead,” I say, because I figure if we’re going to talk, I might as well match her speed. I turn from the mirror and grab a paper towel to dry my hands. “My mom will go with me. But I’m scared that there’ll be something wrong with the baby.”

“Oh, girl, it’ll be fine!” She shrugs. “And if it’s not, it’s outta your hands. Sometimes shit is.” She sighs.

I hesitate before asking, “You had a baby die?”

“Brain cancer,” Brittaney says. “It was fast. They found it on her one-year checkup, and she was gone before she was two.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It is what it is,” she says, and for the first time, I can see that her nonchalance is her armor. I feel guilty for not seeing it before.

“If it was cancer,” I say, “why would your ex-boyfriend say it was your fault that she died?”

For the first time ever, Brittaney looks uncomfortable with our conversation.

“Like I said before, I don’t start showing until the third trimester, and I’d only gotten my period a couple of times before I got pregnant, so it was easy for me to be in denial for a while. By the time I knew for sure I was pregnant, I was six months gone, and I was thirteen. I’d been smoking cigarettes since I was eleven, so it was hard for me to give up.” She looks at my face. “I tried. I really did. But finally my doctor told me that at a certain point, my being so stressed out was more harmful to the baby than a cigarette. I was really stressed too, you know? The foster mom I had that year was a bitch. Her nephew was my baby daddy, and since he was nineteen, she was worried she was gonna get in trouble with my social worker. It was a whole thing.”

“He was nineteen? And you were only thirteen?”

“He was the one buying our cigarettes anyway!” She holds her hands up in exasperation. “I asked the cancer doctor, and she said those cigarettes would have only increased the chances by one percent, that it was mostly genetics that gave my baby that kinda cancer, not me having one cigarette a day.” Brittaney gives her trademark shrug. “I was able to quit smoking last time I was pregnant. I was your age, and things were a little better for me. I’d just bought my house and stuff.”

“You own a house?” She should probably be insulted by my surprise, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Okay, so you won’t believe this, but before my parents lost their shit to drugs, they were doctors.” She chuckles and leans forward to whisper, like she’s telling me a dirty joke. “Can you imagine going to medical school, getting married, having a kid in preschool, and then getting hooked on fucking dope? Couple of losers, those two.” She laughs and rolls her eyes so hard this time that it looks like it hurts. “But the one thing they couldn’t sell for drugs—and trust me, they sold everything for drugs, even me—was their life insurance policies. I got to collect on those when I turned eighteen, and I bought my house, free and clear. Neighborhood’s a bit rough, but the school’s okay, and I can save money on gas most days walking to my job.”

“Girls?” Wanda sticks her head inside the restroom. “We’re waiting on you. Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, tell Singh we’re coming,” Brittaney says. “She’s a total suck-up,” she whispers to me.

I nod.

She is a survivor, Dr. Singh had said.

I don’t share anything during group therapy, even though Dr. Singh gives me several significant looks. I don’t know what he expects from me. The others are talking about being unable to save children or getting shot at or raped.

Perhaps when Dr. Singh said I could learn something from Brittaney, he meant I could learn that I didn’t really have anything to be traumatized about.

But then, even though our circumstances are so different, the things the others say about their traumas sound like the things I feel about Finny’s death, like we carry an indelible mark on us.

I don’t speak, but I listen.



When the session is over, I have a text message from Mom. Her car has a flat, and Angelina is coming to change it for her, but they’ll be late picking me up. I stop short in the lobby. I should have brought my book about French parenting to read in case of something like this.

“You okay?” Brittaney asks. She’s already holding her cigarettes and lighter in one hand, and we aren’t even outside.